


Shaking Hands and Bleeding Hearts

by ifdragonscouldtalk



Series: Whumptober 2019 [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock Friendship, Leonard "Bones" McCoy Whump, Whump, Whumptober, spock whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 18:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20912111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifdragonscouldtalk/pseuds/ifdragonscouldtalk
Summary: “Wake up,” he said weakly, voice shaking as much as his hands were as he pressed vainly against the wound. “You stupid mouth breathing hobbit, wake up.” His voice broke, and he had to search deep past the layers of copper that were coating his skin to find his mask of professionalism, to pull his fear and his anger and his care behind a wall and clear his throat and start to think about this not as Spock, but as a patient in the midst of a hostile situation with no medical supplies and little means of help.





	Shaking Hands and Bleeding Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Day One Prompt: Shaky Hands / "Wake up!"

Bones’ hands shook as he pressed against the wound, boiling slick green blood pulsing too fast over his hands, breath coming in pants from fear and adrenaline. The redshirts were covering them, and he heard someone else cry out in pain, undoubtedly downed by disruptor fire just as Spock had been, but he only had eyes for the icy white slits that told him Spock was completely unconscious.

  
“Wake up,” he said weakly, voice shaking as much as his hands were as he pressed vainly against the wound. “You stupid mouth breathing hobbit, _wake up_.” His voice broke, and he had to search deep past the layers of copper that were coating his skin to find his mask of professionalism, to pull his fear and his anger and his care behind a wall and clear his throat and start to think about this not as Spock, but as a patient in the midst of a hostile situation with no medical supplies and little means of help. They had been driven within a cavern system, and although there were shafts of light illuminating the system from somewhere, their communicators were on the fritz due to the heavy amounts of iron and aluminum in the walls, as Spock had informed him just before he’d been downed by the Klingons who had invaded Federation space and followed them to the planet’s surface.

  
“Dr McCoy!”

  
“Is he awake?” he called back, and knew he sounded callous, knew it seemed like he was putting Spock first (he was, God, he had taken an oath but if he just let his friend die here due to some sense of _duty_, he would never forgive himself) as he awkwardly shrugged his shirt off first one arm and then the other to keep pressure on the wound.

  
“Ye-Yes?”

  
“Put pressure on it! Someone try and slip past the bastards, we need help _now_, or Commander Spock is going to die!”

  
“Aye, sir!”

  
He was the most senior officer, but that had never meant he took his command duties well. He also never took them lightly, but he was never as good as keeping an objective head or being in five places at once as Jim or Spock or even Scotty was. Right now he could only be here, in this moment next to Spock, his knees stained with dirty cave water and blood and his hands shaking as he pressed his balled up medical blues against the sucking disruptor wound in Spock’s chest, his professionalism not enough to keep back the tears that wanted to well up. This was, perhaps, the closest they had ever come to losing Spock -- the closest _he_ had ever come to losing Spock.

  
He had lost people before, lost friends, and Jim constantly had to remind him that it was never a reflection on him or his abilities, that he had done the best he could. But if he lost Spock, even Jim would be unable to immediately forgive him. Spock, rather than being out of place, seemed to just be an extension of the _Enterprise_ herself -- it was almost impossible to imagine the ship functioning without him.

  
“Do-ctor.” Bones’ head jerked up at the rough, broken voice. Spock’s tenor was unmistakable, even if his vision was blurry with tears he had been unable to suppress. “Your hands are shaking.” The observation was unnecessary and so damn like Spock that McCoy had to laugh, rough and mirthless.

  
“Yeah, well, it’s damn cold in this fuckin’ cave system you led us into, you pointy eared menace!” Spock’s eyebrow rose, although the pain he was feeling was clear in the lines of his face. Over the echoes of phaser and disruptor fire, Bones could hear Jim shouting unnecessarily, probably barrelling like a bull through the caves with Scotty and a team of redshirts right behind. “Stay awake, you hear me Spock?”

  
“My ears are perfectly functional, Doctor.”

  
Bones’ hands didn’t stop shaking until they were back on the ship.


End file.
